


Red Feathers

by Tierfal



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Drama, Gen, General
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-04
Updated: 2010-06-04
Packaged: 2017-10-09 22:08:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/92126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor dies for good this time.  (Sort-of-spoilers through 5.5.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Feathers

**Author's Note:**

> Eltea and I independently-but-then-together arrived at a set of criteria that River Song will have to meet, given the hints dropped in Series 5, to get our permanent approval. I made the mistake of thinking the conversation over last week and then wrote this in one go -- epic thank you to Eltea for major and excellent editing suggestions. Disclaimer: if Steve Moffat is allowed to ignore Newton's First Law of Motion, I feel entitled to fudge chemical properties for effect.

By the time he rounds out his thirteenth regeneration, the Doctor has parsed most of the rules of the universe's convoluted game. They're patterns, more than anything, but he's learned to treat them like parameters. He has learned a lot of things. He's met a lot of people. He's saved and lost and ruined forever, and he's done much of what he meant to, which is more than he'd dared to hope.

This regeneration is ginger at last—literally at the last—with gray eyes so big and round they overwhelm the rest of the face, which has a little mouth that quirks and a nose that's a bit broken from that time in the Coliseum. This regeneration looks very young to human eyes, which is irritating, because no one takes it seriously. This regeneration has a dark sense of humor, which he thinks may be a Time Lord coping mechanism, because he's wise and ancient and has to force himself to trust. Less trust means more circumspection, which minimizes the risk of unregenerative death.

The Doctor has never seen a Time Lord naturally die. He'd almost started to think it wasn't possible, but he feels it now. It's heavy.

This time, when he meets River Song, she is studying for her degree, and she doesn't recognize him. She flirts with him anyway, but she also flirts with everyone else in the entire off-campus pub.

The Doctor has forgotten how much he loves the fifty-first century.

Between the psychic paper and thirty seconds with an administrative computer—he's gotten faster over the years, and he's made a few additions to screwdriver that look rather familiar—he puts himself at the head of River's final practical assignment, and the group treks off into the forested reserve, and they reach the dig site, and they excavate. The Doctor vaguely wishes he'd tried this earlier; he is, to his surprise, enjoying archaeology. Lifting out and dusting off the detritus of someone else's history makes him feel bigger and smaller at the same time.

When they sit in the front room of the cabin the university built just off-site, the others sleep, River studies, and the Doctor catalogues. He is meticulous and respectful and dead silent.

"You are," River says, looking at him, "without a doubt the quietest professor I've ever met. Most of them will keep talking your ear off after you've jumped off a bridge to escape."

"You would know," the Doctor mutters, smiling just a little, because that water was ridiculously cold.

River is quiet, too, for a while before she asks, "Who are you really? I know a lot of doctors, but I've never known one with a definite article instead of a name."

The Doctor has forgotten how much he loves students.

"I'm just a man," the Doctor says. He considers. "Or near enough. In the end, I think that will probably suffice."

River doesn't know what to make of him, which fires her curiosity almost as much as it drives her insane. This, too, is a balance that the years and the universe have helped him to understand.

Every river follows a course, and this River's will switch and switchback. The Doctor is not surprised when the two of them, far ahead of the less enthusiastic doctoral candidates, get caught in the landslide. He is not surprised when they emerge shaken but unbowed, and he is not surprised when they forge off into the network of caves by the light of his screwdriver and her torch. He is not surprised when they reach the crystal-lined cavern at the end of the labyrinth, and he is not surprised when the tiny, translucent parasites stop sucking nutrients from stalactites and start feeding on the Void energy that tingles beneath his skin. He is not surprised that they do not touch River, and he is not surprised that she finds his sudden weariness unusual and more than a bit annoying.

But then, not much surprises the Doctor anymore.

While River sleeps curled in a dry place on the cavern floor; while the university sends out rescue teams; while the luminescent crystals fade and the Doctor starts to glow, he cuts blue leather from the bottom of his pack and works well through the night. He can sense the night by now, because he knows beginnings, and endings, and more, perhaps, than anybody should.

He wants to write River a song. He wants to write her a swan song, but there is a ringing in his ears, because the creatures are consuming his cells and producing radiation at a truly alarming rate. He regrets that he will have died the same way twice. He regrets that she will understand too late. He regrets that Jack isn't here, as he was there for Jack—if only because he wouldn't mind a joke about where hair might or might not be so red.

He regrets the anticlimax. He regrets that he can't go out in a blaze of glory, in a starburst, in a rain of fire, in an explosion that encapsulates the thousands that he's caused. He regrets that all of the struggle, all of the fighting, all of the hardness he mustered will disappear so easily.

He resents it.

But he has tied it up and knotted it, and this shabby, shifting, jaunty, overwrought container has held and offered many presents. That the last one comes full-circle seems fitting, so he writes the best song he can.

It's cruel—the universe's unsung hero writing his own eulogy. It tastes bitter in his mouth as he clenches his fingers, trying to stop them shaking around the pencil. He should have _more_; should have this age's Homer at his heels; should have flights of angels and the heavens in flame.

He should have solace, he thinks, as the day breaks far beyond the stifling confines of this pit. He should have anything he could ask for as he dies for good—forever. Instead he will fall into the darkness alone and empty-handed, small and lost and uncelebrated after all the things he's done. After all he's given. After all he's given up.

This isn't fair. It isn't right. And he doesn't have the strength to fight this last and most powerful injustice of his not-too-long-enough life.

"What the hell is this?" River asks, kneeling before him where he lies. "And what the hell are _you_?"

"Increasingly," the Doctor says, "uranium. And this is the only piece of music I've ever composed. It's for you—a symphony of spoilers."

River stares down at the book, and then at him. She has to squint a little to make out his features, and she hasn't cracked the cover. When she does, she will find pencil sketches of some faces and assurances that she can trust them all. She will find tables of temperatures, star charts, a list of sonic functions, snatches of translated advice, and a single instruction.

_Never fear, because I've seen the end: the end of the universe, the end of humanity, the end of you. And you must trust this face, too, which will be difficult—believe me when I promise you that everything will be all right._

On the final page, she will find the words _Snape kills Dumbledore_, followed by the words _(It's still funny.)_ Below them, he has written the English approximation of a Gallifreyan name that no one else is here to remember.

He takes the book out of her hands and sets it on the dusty ground, laying his screwdriver beside it. He rummages in her pack for the emergency firearm and wraps her hands around the fittingly old-fashioned pistol.

"I am _not_ shooting you," River says, and her voice shakes, "no matter _what_ excuse you give, and no matter _how_ mad you are, and no matter _what_ percentage of you is uranium."

"Except you will," the Doctor says, and he can just hear the scrabbling of the rescue team, "because if you wait any longer, I'll messily explode with the approximate force of a nuclear power station, and this planet will collapse."

"Then we all get to die," River says, and her hands shake too. "Perfect. Sounds like a party."

"Except you don't," the Doctor says. "This is a fixed point. You pull that trigger. You already know that, don't you?"

The gleaming white strands are intersecting, streaming through the space and twining close. Time won't wait. He reaches out and clasps the barrel of the gun, drawing it forward, pressing it to his right heart, and then he lifts his blazing hand and touches River's temple with two fingertips.

He gives her just enough. She curls one finger around the trigger, and her eyes are wide, and he can see himself reflected—pulsing gold and ginger-red.

"Goodbye," he says. "You like McCartney."

He sees the rescue team leader over her shoulder, and she pulls the trigger, and he meets her gaze as the bullet shatters him.

On the first page, she will find the words _Hello, Sweetie_.

The Doctor had forgotten how much he loves everything, but he remembers now.

He closes his eyes, and the shouting fades in over the deafening crack of the gunshot, and then it all dwindles slowly into white.


End file.
